These, now hard to find, big bands' are German propaganda to England (and north America by way of short wave radio). Hitler outlawed popular music in Germany and made these popular songs for his enemies who enjoyed these as comedy. England Murdered Karl Swendler for these AFTER the war likely because he was a Jew baiter.


This audio is part of the collection: Old Time Radio
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Artist/Composer: Karl Schwendler
Keywords: Propaganda; WW2; 1930s; 1940s; big band; German; nazi;

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: lancelotlmg - - November 10, 2010
Subject: Real Recordings with a Nazi Intro
These recordings represent a genuine historical find. Listening to them, one cannot tune out the banality that led to the horrors of Nazism: Witness the creepy neo-Nazi intro to these pieces.

Reviewer: T479 - - August 3, 2010
Subject: Charlie existed
Records are from original 78s and cleaned up... A CD was made available in England about 6 years ago I think..... About 30 numbers exist...
Just about all of the musicians went on to have careers after the war and there were no reprisals... Lale Anderson sung Lillie Marlein in English, Under an Umbrella (unter einen regenschirm)and Another lovely day has ended (Ein neider schoner tag zu endert) Also, "Roll on the Blue Funnel" a servicemans ditty especially for the English soldier.... Excuse the German spelling, so quite a star cast.... One of the best is "Your the Tops" completely non-pc but very well written and good propaganda.
I can see why Churchill would have liked them.....

Reviewer: RobertHenry - - September 13, 2008
Subject: Interesting bit of history
The correct spelling of his name is Karl Schwedler.

Reviewer: gestroud - - September 9, 2008
Subject: Are these from an album or Radio Broadcast?
These files seem more like they came from an LP rather than a radio show. Are they in the right section of the Archive? There is a wikipedia reference somewhere, but anyone can write just about anything on wikipedia.

Reviewer: fredatwork - - September 8, 2008
Subject: PLEASE do some research before writing (rather stupid) reviews!
To answer two (or more) questions raised in the (incredibly stupid anhd uninformed) "reviews" so far:

Yes, these are from (78rpm) records, but (equally yes) they're in the right section - these records were never for sale but pressed solely for propaganda broadcast purposes (on different radio stations in Nazi-occuped Europe).

No, these are NOT "neo-Nazi" recordings, but genuine recordings by this rather strange jazz/swing band - in Nazi-occupied Europe, where jazz and swing were regarded as "degenerate" music (and hence prohibited), German national radio actually recruited some of the best jazz musicians for the explicit purpose of recording this type of propaganda jazz for broadcast over short-wave radio (in programs like "Germany Calling").

Charlie and His Orchestra (see Wikipedia link below for details) had explicit permission to buy the latest jazz records or to record Allied broadcasts off the air - usually, the first verse was more or less a copy of the original, the verses following contained anti-Allies, anti-Jewish propaganda lyrics.

The band was led by Lutz Templin, the singer's correct name was "Charlie" Karl Schwedler - to the best of my knowledge, he was NOT "murdered" after the war, but together with other band members like drummer Fritz Brocksieper enjoyed a rather successful career being hired by the American troops to play at their clubs (advertised as "Mr. Goebbels' Swing Band") right after Germany surrendered. Winston Churchill allegedly also enjoyed these recordings (possibly because of their outrageous lyrics).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_his_orchestra